


The Last Gems on Earth

by Totipalmate (orphan_account)



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-21
Updated: 2015-06-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 12:03:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4179153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Totipalmate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><div>
  <p>
    <br/>
    <i>When the Hail Mary's you've been saying lose their savor--</i>
    <br/>
    <i>just when your dungeon walls feel like they're closing in--</i>
    <br/>
    <i>whose are those bloody knuckles reaching down to grab you,</i>
    <br/>
    <i>just as the last of the light overhead is growing dim?</i>
    <br/>
  </p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Gems on Earth

Pearl tore through the battlefield at a full sprint. There were weapons littering the ground, some broken, some caked with blood; lost or abandoned or discarded, or simply left without an owner to wield them. A fire raged to one side, consuming everything in its wake. In the distance someone screamed, and it was the shrill, ghastly death knell of a gem being destroyed. They’d lost sight of Rose Quartz hours ago, and Pearl feared the worst.

 

Black specks in the sky ahead signified something terrible. A bomber regimen of Homeworld gems roared over the battlefield. Some were in aircrafts; others were aloft by their own physical and magical means.  Projectile weapons and explosives of all sorts of origins rained down. The Crystal Gems scrambled what aerial fighters they had, but the numbers were few and far between. Blood and viscera rained down from above when the two sides met in skirmishes. A massive throwing knife struck the ground inches from Pearl’s left foot; in a flood of adrenaline, she responded by throwing her spear like a javelin. It struck a winged gem in the neck, and she fell in a heap of black feathers and candy-red blood spatter. Pearl kept running.

 

She passed a downed ship of epidote and jade as, somewhere behind her, someone dropped an artillery shell. The explosion rocked the earth, splitting trees and shattering weapons. Pearl hit the ground instinctively as shrapnel ripped through the air around her. A piece struck her in the ribs; several more grazed shallow flesh. She strained to pull herself up as the smoke cleared, vision blackened by pain. There was the terrifying sensation of someone grabbing her by the arm and she tore away with all her strength, collapsing on her back into the dirt. A horrible agony throbbed through her torso, and blood soaked into the dust under her. Dazed, she could barely react when Garnet’s face eclipsed her view of the burning sky.

  
  
“Come on,” the fusion rasped hoarsely, grabbing her under the arms. Pearl’s feet searched for purchase, but did not immediately find it; hooking her elbows around Pearl’s biceps, Garnet drug her urgently behind the nearby fallen craft. They collapsed together under one of the wings.

  
  
Garnet slumped against the belly of the aircraft, breathing heavily.  Her visor was gone, presumably lost in the heat of battle, and her face was caked in blood, not all of which was her own. Pearl rolled over onto one side, taking some of the pressure off her injury, and did her best to will the pain away. When the world around her stopped spinning, and the color returned to her vision, she did what she could to sit up, and her efforts were met by Garnet’s hands helping to ease her upright.

  
  
“I thou’ you w’re dead,” Admitted Garnet darkly, her hold on Pearl lingering.

  
  
“Not yet,” Pearl said, thickly. She could taste blood in her throat.

  
  
“Y’ jus’ _disappeared_ , Pearl,” came the accusation.

  
  
“I went to find Rose,” Pearl bit back. She summoned a new spear, and it looked like she was going to try to stand. Garnet  held her in place firmly.

 

“Y’ don’ stand a chance ou’ there,” Garnet warned.  Pearl was swift, and she was evasive, but she had no defensive capabilities. She’d be as good as dead, as long the bombs kept raining. Pearl’s face contorted in anger.

 

“Rose needs me,” she sneered, trying to shove her away. Garnet was stronger, and refused to let go.

  
  
“Rose ‘as ‘er shield,” she asserted. One of Pearl’s hands were broken; she could feel it in the way the she fought against her. Fresh, open wounds marred her pale skin, oozing blood. There was a gash across her clavicle from two days ago that burned hot and greenish-blue; it was inflamed. Probably infected. She looked ready to collapse, but here she was, _alive and fighting_.

 

“I have a duty to her,” Pearl bit back, voice rising. Garnet pushed her back against the body of the ship, pinning her by the shoulders.

 

“ _You ‘ave a duty to yours’lf_ ,” she yelled back, half-pleading. “Y’ll get yourself killed ou’ there, Pearl. Again. Maybe f’r good, this time.”

 

Fourteen hours ago, Garnet had triggered a landmine that had taken off the better part of her right leg. She spent thirty-four terrifying minutes reduced to two stones gleaming in the dusky sunlight, and she had been certain the whole time that someone malevolent would find her, alone and vulnerable. The regeneration had been hasty and the limb still thrummed with a constant, dull pain that echoed up her hip and made her nauseous. She spent every conscious moment frightened; for herself, for the planet, for her friends. For Pearl, who threw herself recklessly into danger. Garnet dreaded the day that she’d be returned to them in pieces.

 

She leaned down a little, towards her comrade. Ten minutes from now, they might both be dead, but right then, in that moment, they were alive. Broken, and beaten, and maybe even hopeless, but they were _alive_ all the same. Pearl stared back at her, eyes angry and determined, and Garnet longed for that tenacity. Guts aching, she pulled Pearl forwards by the shoulders, into her body. Their lips met at Garnet’s behest, and she clenched her eyes shut in a sort of raw, fearful desperation. The ballerina charmed her in the most peculiar ways, and she’d held fastidiously to a naive sort of hope that, when the fighting finally stopped, and they could breathe again, she’d see past her infatuations, and perhaps be equally charmed by her. Now it felt like the fighting would never end, and if one of them were to go to their grave, then she was going to love her, at least for a moment.

 

Garnet was panting when their lips parted, and she could taste traces of Pearl’s blood. She looked down at the saltwater gem with knit brows, and Pearl peered back up with dazed, unreadable eyes. Then, swiftly, she struck Garnet; open-palmed and across the face. Stunned by the violence, Garnet didn’t stop her when Pearl hoisted herself to her feet with the assistance of her spear. She cast one last cold look back at the fusion, her disgust tangible, and then disappeared into the cloying smoke and flashing swords.

 

Alone, Garnet doubled over, and vomited up a mouthful of blood and bile.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  _It was their love you wanted, not mine,_   
>  _but when they deny your name three times,_   
>  _I'll be the last gem on Earth._   
> 
> 
>   
>  Last night I found out that Marty, Greg's former manager, was voiced by Jon Wurster. This is significant, because Jon Wurster is also the drummer for _the Mountain Goats_ , which is my absolute favorite band of all time. So, to celebrate, I decided to write a little SU/tMG drabble. It's not about Marty, but I'm pretty sure the song itself is from an era in which Wurster was part of the band, so...one out of two ain't bad?  
> 
> 
>   
>  Song: _Last Man on Earth_   
>  Album: _Heretic Pride_   
>  Artist: _the Mountain Goats_   
> 


End file.
